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By Debbie Schlussel**** UPDATE: Fortunately, this film did not win the Oscar. ****
You’ve read my work on why anti-Israel, pro-Islamic terrorist screeds like “West Bank Story” and anti-American, pan-Islamist, pro-Illegal Alien BS like “Babel” have been nominated (multiple times for “Babel”) for tonight’s Academy Awards.
But French website GalliaWatch alerts us to another false, propaganda-filled nomination (for Best Foreign Language Film) at tonight’s Oscars telecast, “Indigenes” a/k/a “Days of Glory,” which attributes the World War II liberation of France as the WORK OF MUSLIM ALGERIANS!!! HUH?!!!!! Hello . . .? Who was it that died on the beaches of Normandy? Get a fricking clue: The liberators were AMERICAN SOLDIERS, not Muslim Arabs from North Africa (who were working WITH–NOT against–the Nazis). Unbelievable.

Supposedly, this movie is about four Algerian Muslims who enlisted in the French Army to fight the Nazis. But let’s get real. The liberators were Americans (and British), and most North Africans–Arab Muslims–helped the Nazis and maintained concentration camps of Jews there.Read about this absurdity (and have a barf bag ready). Oh, and by the way, this trash was funded by the French Government. That’s what we get for saving their asses.
“No good deed goes unpunished” TIMES TEN!
(For the record, I haven’t screened this film yet b/c it does not come to Detroit until April.)

39 Responses

Lack of opportunity following military service to France (during both WWs) was a common gripe among French colonial subjects. Frantz Fanon mentions it in his passionate, quasi-Marxist writings. Many leaders of Algeria’s war against France had served in WWII.
Good on warning American audiences against gobbling up a potentially heavy-handed, white-guilt slant to this story. Yet it focuses on one French platoon only and not the entire Allied struggle. If the film even does mention the mighty American liberators, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s only to say that liberators’ army was segregated, too.
Can you imagine The Young Lions without the Jewish character of Noah Ackerman? This Franco-Algerian story deserves to be told — but told well.

Galliawatch makes very good points about the crimes of soldiers then and actors now (points which Rolling Stone’s and Ebert’s review didn’t mention). This corrects the record, but … there’s also, say, the Soviet army’s mass rape of Berlin.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Muslims were enthusiastic supporters of Hitler.
YES, THAT’S VERY WELL KNOWN. THERE WAS A SPECIAL MUSLIM DIVISION OF THE SS, AND THE GRAND MUFTI OF JERUSALEM, A DIRECT ANCESTOR OF YASSER ARAFAT, MET WITH HITLER TO ASK HIM TO: 1) SPEED UP THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWS; AND 2) EXTEND THE FINAL SOLUTION OF JEWS TO THE MIDDLE EAST.
DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

Dear Debbie;
Unbe-frigging-lievable!!!
It was American teenagers, and young men who liberated not just France, but western Europe. All the militaries of our allies put together weren’t as powerful as we were. No other country could have done what we did. Fighting in the South Pacific, and in Europe. We kicked everybody’s ass.
Sincerely;
EJO

WHAT THE F@#K!!!!! What French Army during WWII? This is unbelievable. I almost had a stroke when I read this. I happen to know quite a bit about the liberation of France and why you may ask? Because my grandfather was there as an AMERICAN soldier. He even wrote down a brief summary of his experience.
To sum it up, he went into Normandy on June 14, 1944 with the 79th INF DIV. He went all over northern France. Someone in his unit even brought a camera projector, if that’s what you called them back in the day. His unit was heading for Paris to liberate it but they were ordered to go around so the ONLY French Batalion could liberate Franch. Only of course after WE, the AMERICANS, drove most of the Germans back and forced them to abandon Paris.
My grandfather is rolling in his grave right now. I am just dumbfounded how history is continually re-written. I suppose one day when all of the old Frenchies have died, France will destory the cemeteries and monuments they have for the TWO times AMERICA has bailed their pansy asses out. Good thing I went to Normandy and Pont-Du-Hoc while it still stands. DISGUSTING!!!!!!

Hi Debbie,
I was just curious if you realize just how much your credibility suffers when you criticize something like a movie, tv show, or book, if you’ve never seen it?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your point of view… that would be wrong for me to do, since I haven’t ever seen the movie either. I just thought you’d like to know that serious journalists, authors, and just about anyone in the world who wants to be taken seriously, perform some research prior to making statements such as yours.
Cheers!
-Ben

I’m all for unity, and love for one’s country; but am I the only one that thinks this entire article, and the comments succeeding it are rants of American propaganda. The anecdotes themselves are all hearsay: “Hey my grandpa served in world war II and he told me about when he fought in France, they were cowards”…etc.

Talk about absurdity. Maybe you shouldn’t care too much about a single movie. There are tons of American propagandas out there.
America played a large part in liberating Western Europe. Nobody try to deny that, that movie doesn’t deny that in anyway either. But the fact is that there were a lot of Algerians, Moroccans or even as far as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos who enlisted in the French army to fight in Europe. What did we get in return? The French decided at that time to recolonize our countries.
America is not that innocent either. We helped rescue downed American pilot over North Vietnam during WW2 and fought the Japanese. What do we get in return? A war with them. Worse, even before the second Indochina war they funded 80% of French’s effort to colonize Vietnam. At 1 point, even offered them 2 nuclear bomb to bomb Hanoi.
Have you ever watch a movie with a slightest mention about these facts? No, of course not. And now, just as the French started to do the right, some Americans are still trying to rewrite history by denying Algerian involvement in the liberation of France.
At least try to get your facts straight and WATCH THE MOVIE before you start writing these crap.

This is the first post -in a long time of reading blogs- that truly offends me in a personal level.
You are an embarassment for your people. Exactly the kind of american that invites the whole world to wrongly despise you people. You are a divisionist and a hatemonger. A fundamentalist.
You can keep your silly oscars anytime. Give to the patriots. You totally ruined the night. Thank you.

Actually, it looks like a pretty good film which has stimulated a change in the law in France, to end descrimination against French Army veterans of North African decent.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5386356.stm
***
“YES, THAT’S VERY WELL KNOWN. THERE WAS A SPECIAL MUSLIM DIVISION OF THE SS…”
Yes Debbie, but the remaining 99.99% where Christians.

Neutrality,
Please try to actually read what people write before you comment. I did not write that my grandfather said the French were cowards. I said that there were only a few French military units and they were used for ceremonial purposes such as “liberating” Paris after the Germans had already fled.
But I guess my grandfather was just lying to me about his service. What a POS you are.

I saw the movie. It was really terrific!
The claim that the movie credits the liberation of France exclusively to Algerians is patently false and frankly, quite humorous.
This is a story about a small group of Algerians who were involved – along with hundreds of thousands of other freedom lovers from around the world – in liberating France. In no way does the movie attempt to diminish the contributions of any other group of liberators.
It sounds as if you’d prefer that the contributions of these Algerians should be buried. I’m not sure what one would call that – racism isn’t the precise word, but it’s something along those lines.

” I said that there were only a few French military units and they were used for ceremonial purposes such as “liberating” Paris after the Germans had already fled.”
This is an absolute lie.
At the time of the D-Day landings there were 400,000 Free French troops, many originating from North Africa and what was then “French West Africa”. (The French colonies in South Esat Asia by-and-large sided with the Vichy government.)
The second corps of the Free French Army fought quite brilliantly during Operation Cobra, their victory allowed the allied forces to break out from Normandy towards Paris.
The First Corps of the Free French invaded France near Cannes in Operation Dragoon and completly destroyed the German Panzer units they came up against.
(Amusingly the French Army also took on the invading Italian army, and wiped out 1500 of their troops. The French losses? 8! )
By the end of the war the Free French forces counted no less than 1.25 million men, and fought everywhere from North and West Africa to France, Belgium and Germany itself.

Actually some of the best fighters during the Battle of France in 1940 where the French colonial soldiers (many of whose offspring would be fighting against France 20 years later) from North Africa. The colonial soldiers were always the better ones since promotion was due to competence not politics. However in Italy the French North African soldiers besides being excellent fighters were notorious for their raping of Italian women (remember the Sophia Loren movie “Two Women”?).

“However in Italy the French North African soldiers besides being excellent fighters were notorious for their raping of Italian women (remember the Sophia Loren movie “Two Women”?)”
Ahh yes, movies as bone fide historical documents.
So what are you saying? That only Muslim soldiers commit rape?

I rest my case.
RAMPAGE ON MONTE CASSINO
Monte Cassino fell to the Allies on May 18, 1944. After a four month struggle and the abbey bombed into ruins by the US Air Force, Polish troops of the 12th Lancers, 3rd Carpathian Division, raised their regimental flag over the ruins of the 6th century Benedictine Monastery situated high in the Apennines of central Italy. The next night thousands of French Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese troops, attached to the French Expeditionary Corps, swarmed over the slopes of the hills surrounding Monte Cassino and in the villages of Ciociaria and Esperia, which is in the region of Lazio, raped every woman and girl that came within their sight. Over 2,000 women, ranging in age from 11 years to 86 years suffered at the hands of these gang-raping soldiers as village after village was entered. Menfolk who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered without mercy, around 800 of them died. Two sisters aged 15 and 18 were raped by dozens of soldiers each. One died from the abuse, the other was still in a mental hospital in 1997, 53 years after the event. Most of the dwellings in the villages were destroyed and everything of value was stolen. Later in the war, these same troops raped around 500 women in the Black Forrest town of Freudenstadt, on April 17, 1945, after its capture. In Stuttgart, colonial French troops, mostly African, but under the command of General Eisenhower, rounded up around 2,000 women and herded them into the underground subways to be raped. In one week more women were raped in Stuttgart than in the whole of France during the four year German occupation.

WHEN THREE NATIONS landed on the beaches of NORMANDY, FRANCE on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), they had attacked fallen Europe with the largest seaborne invasion ever.
There were three flags that flew above the attacking forces on that day, American, British and CANADIAN (old Dominion flag).
It would be the start of a yearlong fight to win Europe back.
Although Canadians comprised less than 20% of the attacking force, Canadians advanced the furthest inland, of any of the Allied forces.
Canadians that landed on Juno Beach went onto liberate HOLLAND.
ìHowever, troops from many other countries participated in D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, in all the different armed services: Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.î (D-Day MuseumÖ http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/)

Not having seen the film, I’ll reserve judgement. Yet it would be foolish to deny French North African troops played a role in the liberation of Europe–the Colonial Corps fought in Italy, and Southern France as well as Southern Germany.
Discipline aside, they were effective troops–but certainly not the only ones fighting. They also fought in Vietnam against the Viet Minh–Algerian and Morrocan troops were part of the Dien Bien Phu garrison. If the French want make such a film, let them. I would hope NOBODY gets their history from films exclusively.
I challenge other nations’ film industries to step up and do the equivalent of Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan or even Flags of Our Fathers–I clearly did not see the same film Deb did in that regard.
Where’s the British film about 3d Infantry Division D-Day? Where’s the Canadian film about 3d Canadian Infantry Division on D-Day?
Of course, Hollywood of late can not be relied upon these days for such efforts.

One more matter of historical note–the Muslim SS (13th SS Division “Handschar”) were not “Muslim Arabs from North Africa,” but Bosnian Muslims from Yugoslavia–the same bunch we helped in the 1990s. Kosovar Albanians were similarly involved in various pro-Axis activities during the war.
The Grand Mufti was indeed a full supporter of the Holocaust. The Palestinian record here was, and remains, shameful.

ìNot having seen the film, I’ll reserve judgment.î
Holy Moly! Thereís a revolutionary concept!
***
ìYet it would be foolish to deny French North African troops played a role in the liberation of Europe–the Colonial Corps fought in Italy, and Southern France as well as Southern Germany.î
..and in Northern France, Belgium and the rest of western Germany.
***
ìDiscipline aside, they were effective troops–but certainly not the only ones fighting.î
No shit, Sherlock.
***
ìIf the French want make such a film, let themî
Well, I must say that itís a huge relief to know that the French can make a movie about their own history without getting permission from American conservatives.
***
ìI challenge other nations’ film industries to step up and do the equivalent of Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan or even Flags of Our Fathers–I clearly did not see the same film Deb did in that regard.î
You donít know anything about the history of European film-making, do you?
***
ìWhere’s the British film about 3d Infantry Division D-Day?î
Itís called ìThe Longest Dayî.
***
ìOne more matter of historical note–the Muslim SS (13th SS Division “Handschar”) were not “Muslim Arabs from North Africa,” but Bosnian Muslims from Yugoslavia–the same bunch we helped in the 1990s. Kosovar Albanians were similarly involved in various pro-Axis activities during the war.î
Are you suggesting that we shouldnít have prevented the genocidal attack s on the Bosnian Muslims because their grandfathers fought on the wrong side in WW2?? And lets not forget that 99.99% of those who activated the Holocaust were Christians ñ like Hitler himself.
***
ìThe Grand Mufti was indeed a full supporter of the Holocaust.î
Well the Pope doesnít exactly get off scott-free does he?
***
ì The Palestinian record here was, and remains, shameful.î
As is everybody elses.

Purple Cow… such anger management issues.
The Longest Day? You need an historical refresher. The 3d Can ID is not represented in that film, based on Cornelius Ryan’s anecdotal work.
And my comments about the European film industry or lack thereof re: war films only highlights my point–nothing’s stopping them from making any film they want. That they (for whatever reason) won’t do so isn’t my problem, though it’s a sad waste of talent.
And you seem to have problems differentiating points of rhetorical flourish from the granting of permission, never mind my politics–an issue about which you know nothing.
As for the French Colonial Corps fighting in Northern Europe, maybe in 1940, but not 1945. They were primarily with de Lattre’s Army in the south–I have stood on their positions on the Lauter River.
And my point about the Bosnian SS was merely to point out that they were not Arabs. Their current veneration of said unit today does not speak well of them, and my comments remain re: the Palestinians, whose manufactured victimhood status remains a real fetish with many Europeans–something I got experience in my 10 years living there. I thought we were addressing the very real sympathy for Hitler that is manifest in many parts of the Arab/Islamic World TODAY, not some attempt to change the subject by pointing out that “lots of people” supported the Nazis. No sh-t indeed. Today, on the other hand, you won’t find all that much support for the 3d Reich outside the West Bank and other such places.

Purple Cow
“That’s all I get?”
That is all you are worth Mr. “The Nation” reader. I guess a bonehead such as yourself still thinks that North African troops in World war II were not notorious rapists in Italy and Germany. Oh yes, troops form other countries including the US did occasionally commit rape – there you have my disclaimer.
TimW
“Today, on the other hand, you won’t find all that much support for the 3d Reich outside the West Bank and other such places.” (You might ad Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, Karachi, Kuala Lampur, Jakarta as well).
Too true.

TimW, complete gibberish there buddy, you seem to be all over the place tonight. I’ve no clue what you are trying to say about the European film industry. Are you criticising Europeans for not making movies about American soldiers? Why should they? Do AMericans make movies about French soldiers?
And your point about where in France North african troops fought. what’s taht all about. For the record you are wrong, but even if you were right, so what?
***
” No sh-t indeed. Today, on the other hand, you won’t find all that much support for the 3d Reich outside the West Bank and other such places.”
You forgot Louisiana, Montana and Michigan.
Oh, and it’s spelt s-h-i-t.
***
As for your your blatantly racist portrayal of Palestinians as Nazi’s, that’s just false. I knew many Palestinians at University and most of them were good Socialists, fine comrades. And as for “manufactured victimhood” that’s just sick. You should be ashamed of yourself.
***
Then there’s this…
“…that is all you are worth Mr. “The Nation” reader. ”
I’ve no idea what ‘the Nation’ is, but whatever it is, i assure you I do not read it.
***
“I guess a bonehead such as yourself…”
Ah yes, the ad hominem attack. The true signifying mark of the conservative who is losing an argument.
***
“..still thinks that North African troops in World war II were not notorious rapists in Italy and Germany.”
well duuuuh, I’m guessing there were rather a lot of racists in Italy and Germany in the 1940’s. Y’know, given that they had lived under fascist regimes for the best part of 20 years.
***
” Oh yes, troops form other countries including the US did occasionally commit rape – there you have my disclaimer.”
yep and lest we forget
Many Muslims may have supported the holocaust, BUT IT WAS CHRISTIANS WHO CARRIED IT OUT.
And on that thought i’m going to bed.
Slaap lekker.

What an absurdly dumb post.
I guess you never heard of Omar Mukhtar? Look him up.
“ìOne more matter of historical note–the Muslim SS (13th SS Division “Handschar”) were not “Muslim Arabs from North Africa,” but Bosnian Muslims from Yugoslavia–the same bunch we helped in the 1990s. Kosovar Albanians were similarly involved in various pro-Axis activities during the war.î
What an absurdly idiotic remark. Turkish diplomats Necdet Kent and Selahattin Ulkummen risked their lives to save as many Jews as possible. Israel has declared them “Righteous Gentiles” for their work to save the Jews in Ww2.
And just recently the ADL just honored a Muslim Albanian family who hid 22 Jews from the Gestapo last month.
Stop talking out of your ass to reinforce your anti-Muslim prejudices. You might as well lambast Mexicans since Mexico was a staunch supporter of the Axis powers as well.

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One of the best films nominated for an Oscar this year. The nominee from Algeria in the foreign-language category, Rachid Bouchareb’s “Days of Glory,” is a movingly acted, terrifically old-fashioned World War II picture
The Free French Army enlisted more than 100,000 citizens of its colonies to fight the Nazis. The film, which Bouchareb wrote with Olivier Lorelle , is focused on a handful of North African Arabs who, despite never having stepped foot on French soil, were determined to risk their lives for their fatherland, or, depending on who’s speaking, the motherland. Their patriotism seems both heroic and ironic, since the father-and-motherland would pass a law in 1959 cutting off non-French soldiers’ pensions after France relinquished its colonies. (That law was overturned in 2002, but inequities remained, and Bouchareb’s film has reopened the issue.)
That tension between duty and distrust drives the film, which begins in Algeria in 1943 and ends a year later in a decimated Alsatian village. The soldiers we meet join up for different reasons. Two Moroccan brothers, Larbi (Assaad Bouab ) and Yassir (Samy Naceri ), fall in to pay for Larbi’s wedding. And SaÔ§†(Jamel Debbouze ), against his mother’s wishes, follows impassioned fellow Algerians who want to liberate France from the German occupation.
First it’s off to Italy, where after some very basic training, they find themselves integrated among French soldiers, scaling a hill to take out their German attackers. With that early sequence, Bouchareb has reeled us in. He means for us to know that he’s a war-movie classicist. His shots are long and wide, and his editing spare.
That battle bonds the colonial soldiers to their French comrades, but the two sides never seem truly equal. The movie even shows us the caste system at play in the ranks. The Arabs were slightly better off than the darker-skinned sub-Saharan Africans, one of whom is denied the mess-hall tomatoes every one else enjoys. The soldier is embarrassed, but speaking up for him is Abdelkader (a fantastic Sami Bouajila ), a colonel who publicly protests to the persnickety Sergeant Martinez (Bernard Blancan ) by stomping on a crate of tomatoes.
“Day of Glory” itself evokes a handful of American war films. In particular, it’s as if Bouchareb has wed the revisionism of “Glory,” about black men who fought for the North during the Civil War, and the structure of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.” This movie presents another piece of the incomplete WWII movie puzzle (You can make the same film about black American soldiers .)
The parallel between Bouchareb’s filmmaking skill and his characters’ perseverance in combat is unmistakable. The movie’s political grievances are all the more resonant because the sequences are drawn carefully within recognizable genre tropes. The result is not a radical work, but a movie that through its sheer familiarity (the heroes’ welcome, the sharpshooter figure, the hard-nose sergeant) demands to be equated with other solid and stirringly made war films. Abdelkader and other Arab soldiers insist on a similar, humane acknowledgement from a government that denied them the liberty, fraternity, and equality it promised.

However, the military achievements of the Goumiers in Italy were accompanied by widespread allegation of war crimes: “…exceptional numbers of Moroccans were executedómany without trialófor allegedly murdering, raping, and pillaging their way across the Italian countryside. The French authorities sought to defuse the problem by importing numbers of Berber women to serve as “camp followers” in rear areas set aside exclusively for the Goumiers.”[4] According to Italian sources, more than 7,000 people were raped by Goumiers.[5] [6] The victims, later known in Italy as Marocchinate, included women, children and men, including some priests. The mayor of Esperia (a comune in the Province of Frosinone), reported that in his town, 700 women out of 2,500 inhabitants were raped and that some had died as a result. In northern Latium and southern Tuscany, it is alleged that the Goumiers raped and occasionally killed women and young men after the Germans retreated, including members of partisan formations.[7] (The film Two Women, based on a novel La Ciociara by Alberto Moravia, and directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sophia Loren, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance depicts the rape of Loren’s character and her daughter by a group of Goumiers.)

Oh Ripper, when you copied and pasted from Wiki, you ‘accidentaly’ left out this section of the document.
I just I would post it up for you. That’s the kind of helpfull guy I am…
“The Allied commander, U.S. General Mark Clark also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units:
In spite of the stiffening enemy resistance, the 2nd Moroccan Division penetrated the Gustave [sic] Line in less than two dayís fighting. The next 48 hours on the French front were decisive. The knife-wielding Goumiers swarmed over the hills, particularly at night, and General Juinís entire force showed an aggressiveness hour after hour that the Germans could not withstand. Cerasola, San Giorgio, Mt. DíOro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy… For this performance, which was to be a key to the success of the entire drive on Rome, I shall always be a grateful admirer of General Juin and his magnificent FEC.”